On my mark... Get set... Start not caring! Adobe has announced it plans to discontinue the stand-alone Flash Player for Linux, instead focussing all its effort on the version available through the Pepper API - which, besides Chrome, no one else is going to support.

Plugins are going to be with us for at least the next 5 years minimum so it is time one just got used to that fact and moved on.

That's why Mozilla is still supporting NPAPI. None of the other browser vendors (including Apple) have signaled any interest in supporting Pepper currently. Mozilla might rethink their position if market pressure demands it (i.e. they are the last non-supporting browser). Right now I don't see the necessity. Flash is still supported via NPAPI on important platforms like Windows and OS X which makes up the majority of their users.

And what other NPAPI plug-ins of note are currently required regularly apart from Flash and occasionally Java for the odd banking site?

As for the implementation - why do they have to whole sale 'copy and paste' code form webkit? why didn't they participate in the develop and implement themselves instead of relying on someone else's work?

*ring ring* 2011 called and would like to talk to you about Dart. Apparently Google isn't as interested in cooperative standards development anymore as they used to. Pepper, like Dart, was also devised and developed at Google in secret and was presented to the public after they had a mostly working system. And unlike a prototype which is used as a basis to start standardization discussion (including the option to make radical changes or discard the offer altogether) Google is already using Pepper in production systems so the opportunities for others to participate are rather narrow.

That's why Mozilla is still supporting NPAPI. None of the other browser vendors (including Apple) have signaled any interest in supporting Pepper currently. Mozilla might rethink their position if market pressure demands it (i.e. they are the last non-supporting browser). Right now I don't see the necessity. Flash is still supported via NPAPI on important platforms like Windows and OS X which makes up the majority of their users.

And what other NPAPI plug-ins of note are currently required regularly apart from Flash and occasionally Java for the odd banking site?

Safari already supports NPAPI pepper extensions which is why Flash was able to use hardware acceleration frameworks such as Core Animation, Core Image etc. for their Apple plugin. The original Mozilla Pepper wiki entry listed all the contributions by Apple in terms of the pepper implementation hence the reason why Webkit plugin support was removed now that key features are now accessible to developers.

*ring ring* 2011 called and would like to talk to you about Dart. Apparently Google isn't as interested in cooperative standards development anymore as they used to. Pepper, like Dart, was also devised and developed at Google in secret and was presented to the public after they had a mostly working system. And unlike a prototype which is used as a basis to start standardization discussion (including the option to make radical changes or discard the offer altogether) Google is already using Pepper in production systems so the opportunities for others to participate are rather narrow.

Don't be surprised if Dart ends up in Safari soon - end of the day Firefox is a dead horse than needs to be taken out and turned into dog food. For over 10 years I've seen Firefox developers neglect the Mac platform so quite frankly long term dimise of Firefox doesn't fill me with any grief. When arrogant programmers refuse to acknowledge that their product leaks memory like a sieve then again I have no sympathy for them. For me it seems as though Mozilla programmers and their supporters are butt hurt because they've been left out of the party - and sorry, I have no sympathy for them either.

Safari already supports NPAPI pepper extensions which is why Flash was able to use hardware acceleration frameworks such as Core Animation, Core Image etc. for their Apple plugin.

Since version 10.1 Flash uses CoreAnimation and a bunch of other OS X frameworks to implement part of its functionality like drawing. How does NPAPI (pepper or not) plays into it exactly? Citation for your claims please. Here's an article from a Flash engineer and it doesn't say anything about NPAPI (pepper or not): http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html

The original Mozilla Pepper wiki entry listed all the contributions by Apple

Actually, I would since Apple's WebKit engineers flat out refused to accept the necessary changes to support Dart just a few weeks ago. Google wanted to make WebKit language-agnostic and allow multiple concurrent scripting engines (currently only JavaScript is supported and only one engine at a time). Part of the reason for the refusal was the added code complexity and therefore maintenance burden. Another part was that Dart is not a web standard and WebKit's own mission statement says "[...] using standards-based technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and the DOM" and they want to avoid adding to the current fragmentation.

I'm not saying that Dart in WebKit might not happen at one later point if the decision of the engineers is overridden by higher management but currently the magic eight ball says "Unlikely".

For over 10 years I've seen Firefox developers neglect the Mac platform

Windows Vista/7 users had to endure a very non-native looking interface until just recently (Firefox 4) so it's not like OS X is the only one suffering from that, especially if you consider that most developers are apparently using Mac or Linux. It simply boils down to lack of manpower, especially since large parts of Firefox codebase is currently being rewritten.

so quite frankly long term dimise of Firefox doesn't fill me with any grief.

Which is unfortunate and very short-sighted since Mozilla is the only organization which believably fights for an open web. Whatever organizational failures Mozilla displayed in the past (and there were far too many), at least they got their priorities straight.

When arrogant programmers refuse to acknowledge that their product leaks memory like a sieve then again I have no sympathy for them.

I can't really argue against this. Even if taking into account that most of the remaining leaks are caused by extensions, Mozilla was far too lenient for far too long towards misbehaving extensions despite using them as a unique selling point for Firefox. Classical case of wanting to keep their cake and eat it. At long last they are tightening their rules for extensions to be hosted by Mozilla and started developing tools to help developers with finding leaks.

Don't be surprised if Dart ends up in Safari soon - end of the day Firefox is a dead horse than needs to be taken out and turned into dog food. For over 10 years I've seen Firefox developers neglect the Mac platform so quite frankly long term dimise of Firefox doesn't fill me with any grief. When arrogant programmers refuse to acknowledge that their product leaks memory like a sieve then again I have no sympathy for them. For me it seems as though Mozilla programmers and their supporters are butt hurt because they've been left out of the party - and sorry, I have no sympathy for them either.

Excuse me? Really, WTF are you on?

Firefox is not only the best-performing major browser of all current versions, it also happens to be the browser that uses the least amount of memory.